The multilevel Julich Brain Atlas developed by researchers in the Human Brain Project, could help in studying psychiatric and aging disorders by correlating brain networks with their underlying anatomical structure. By mapping microarchitecture with unprecedented levels of detail, the atlas allows for better understanding of brain connectivity and function. Researchers of the HBP have provided an overview of the Julich Brain Atlas published in the journal Biological Psychiatry, focusing on the cytoarchitecture and receptor architecture of the human brain, and how to apply it for research in the field of psychiatric research.

When a sensory stimulus reaches our brain, it doesn’t drop in calm waters - brains are always agitated with spontaneous activity. Like a surfer, the stimulus has to catch the right wave of activity at the right time to emerge into consciousness. Right in between two waves is the perfect time to do so, argue Giovanni Rabuffo and Pierpaolo Sorrentino of the Human Brain Project.

Modelling in neuroscience is an essential complement to experiments in the efforts to understand the brain, and today a large ecosystem of different models exists. These describe different parts and processes in the brain, from subcellular details to large networks of interacting neurons, but are also developed using different methodologies, like a more data-driven or hypothesis-driven approach.

A recent study by researchers of the Human Brain Project (HBP) provides new insights into the fundamental role of a specific circuitry of the brain in cognitive functions such as episodic memory.

To understand how our brain works, there is no getting around investigating how different brain regions are connected with each other by nerve fibres. In the most recent issue of Science, researchers of the Human Brain Project (HBP) review the current state of the field, provide insights on how the brain’s connectome is structured on different spatial scales – from the molecular and cellular to the macro level – and evaluate existing methods and future requirements for understanding the connectome’s complex organisation.

By analysing images obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and by computational modelling, HBP researchers from Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain) and other institutions have found that measuring the turbulence in brain dynamics enables them to distinguish between different brain states far more precisely than other pre-existing techniques.

HBP researchers have trained a large-scale model of the primary visual cortex of the mouse to solve visual tasks in a highly robust way. The model provides the basis for a new generation of neural network models. Due to their versatility and energy-efficient processing, these models can contribute to advances in neuromorphic computing.

A new study by researchers of the Human Brain Project suggests that an alteration of the normal coordination between subcortical and cortical regions of the brain can be an important mechanism explaining neurological dysfunction after suffering a stroke.

On 25th October 2022, the 7th ever HBP Young Researcher’s Event took place in Zadar, Croatia. HBP and EBRAINS together with the University of Zagreb, School of Medicine and HIBALL invited the entire scientific community, in particular early career researchers, to join the event on-site and online. During this one-day free hybrid event, participants learned more about topics like big data analytics, human brain atlasing, and computational neuroscience in interactive plenaries and hands-on workshops.

Researchers of the Human Brain Project have applied methods and technologies that have originally been developed for the study of complex brain dynamics to study the spread of COVID-19, accurately predicting the timepoints at which new waves of infections started and the timepoints of their peaks and valleys. This epidemic model, one of the first to introduce psychological and socioeconomic factors into the equation, could be used to provide predictions for the spread of COVID-19 and other pandemic diseases in the future.